UN Humanitarian Chief Tours Gaza

Israel destroyed the UN compound and its supplies in Gaza. In an interesting turn of events the UN may ask Israel to pay for damages

her is the full article from CBC news:

The United Nations humanitarian chief suggested during a five-day tour of the Gaza Strip on Thursday that Israel may be asked to pay for damage to UN facilities.

John Holmes's visit comes four days after Israel and Hamas ended 22 days of air strikes and rocket attacks that killed roughly 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

Holmes called the Palestinian casualty toll "extremely shocking" and said the UN might ask Israel to compensate it for wartime damage to UN compounds in Gaza. Hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian aid were destroyed by an Israeli shelling of the main UN compound.

"We want to make sure it is properly investigated and that we get proper accountability for it and proper compensation if it is needed and I think it will be needed," said Holmes.

He said he was looking at immediate humanitarian needs and thinking about longer-term reconstruction in Gaza. The biggest concerns are providing clean water, sanitation, electricity and shelter to people displaced by the fighting, said Holmes.

Israel launched air strikes on Gaza on Dec. 27 in response to Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel. The militant Palestinian group controls Gaza, while its rival, Fatah, governs the West Bank. The Israeli air campaign later expanded to include a ground invasion.

Halting the flow of arms from Egypt into Gaza was one of the main objectives of the war. Senior Israeli envoy Amos Gilad headed to Egypt on Thursday to discuss ways to prevent Gaza militants from replenishing their war-battered arsenal, while Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is in Brussels seeking European Union support for anti-smuggling measures.

As diplomatic efforts continued, Israeli media reported that a number of cabinet ministers are considering freeing some Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Sgt. Gilad Schalit, captured by Hamas-affiliated militants in a June 2006 cross-border raid.

Any prisoner swap deal likely would be tied to an arrangement to end the Gaza blockade.

Gadhafi pitches 'Isratine'
Also Thursday, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi offered his take on how to solve the crisis in the Middle East.

A New York Times opinion piece penned by Gadhafi said a two-state solution will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that the only way to achieve peace is to create a joint state called "Isratine."

"As Gaza still smoulders, calls for a two-state solution or partition persist. But neither will work," he wrote.

"The two movements must remain in perpetual war or a compromise must be reached. The compromise is one state for all, an 'Isratine' that would allow the people in each party to feel that they live in all of the disputed land and they are not deprived of any one part of it."

The comments differ sharply from his calls earlier this month for Arab leaders to allow volunteers to join with Hamas militants to fight against Israel.

Gadhafi also repeatedly called for Israel's Jews to be driven into the sea in the 1970s and 1980s when he was a champion of Arab nationalist positions opposing U.S. and Israeli policies.

Relations with the West warmed in the late 1990s when Libya handed over two suspects wanted in connection with the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am plane.